Delhi needs 20 more bridges just to meet current road traffic load

NEW DELHI: While Delhi celebrates its newest icon in Signature Bridge, it remains woefully short of pathways on Yamuna. Almost a third of the city’s population resides in densely populated areas of east Delhi, but trans-Yamuna connectivity remains largely neglected.
In the 22km densely populated stretch along Yamuna, there are only 15 bridges (nine of them for road traffic), including those built by Delhi Metro and the railways. The river is spread over 40km in Delhi.

Traffic police officers estimate that the city needs overall 30 bridges to manage the current vehicular traffic as the existing facilities are unable to take the current load. “While traditional European cities usually have one bridge for every 500 metres, we are nowhere close to that standard. This, despite the fact that our population is much higher. By global standards, we require at least 40 bridges in Delhi,” former PWD chief Sarwagya Srivastava said.

Yamuna has three barrage-cum-bridges — Wazirabad, old ITO bridge and Okhla — two railway bridges and two metro bridges, at Shastri Park and Yamuna Bank. Moving downstream from Palla, the existing infrastructure starts in northeast Delhi in the form of the old Wazirabad bridge, followed by Signature Bridge and a temporary Pontoon Bridge.

“The mid-section of the river has Yudhisthir Setu near ISBT Kashmiri Gate, Shastri Park metro line bridge and, finally, the old Loha Pul,” a senior PWD official said. Downstream in east Delhi, connectivity is provided by Geeta Colony bridge, the old ITO bridge at Vikas Marg and Nizamuddin Bridge. Towards the end, we have the Delhi-Noida Direct flyway and Okhla Barrage near the Kalindi Kunj border, the official said.

In the works are the Barapullah Phase-III extension, which joins Mayur Vihar-I to Sarai Kale Khan, a bridge parallel to Okhla Barrage, which is almost complete and is expected to open in December, and another one parallel to Loha Pul being built by Northern Railways. DRM Delhi Division RN Singh said the project was “on schedule and city can expect the twin of the old Loha Pul by 2019 end.”

PWD has other plans in the pipeline. “The East-West corridor, which will provide signal-free connectivity from Anand Vihar in east to Tikri in west, will have a bridge component downstream of the new railway bridge at Nizamuddin. The project is currently stuck due to land-sharing issues. A joint committee has been formed to resolve the logjam,” the PWD official said.

Three more bridges in northeast Delhi were proposed four years ago. “These projects, with a combined cost of Rs 1,496 crore, have been approved by UTTIPEC, but are lying in cold storage,” an official said. Two of the three proposed bridges — Sonia Vihar to Jagatpur and Sabhapur to Sant Nagar — are to be constructed upstream of Signature Bridge at Wazirabad, while a third will connect Pushta No. 3 to Chandgi Ram Akhara. By providing an alternative to the traffic coming from Punjab and Karnal, it could significantly decongest the Ring Road. The project was to be funded by the Centre, but it never took off, the official said.

Former PWD chief Srivastava said that a study carried out by the agency had concluded that all investment in such projects were usually recovered in 2-3 years due to reduction in congestion and pollution and savings in terms of time and fuel.

Environmentalists, however, argue that more bridges will only hinder the flow of the river. Pseudo bridges — which restrict river flow and do not cover cross-embankment — will be detrimental to the river ecology, they said. “Signature Bridge is such a pseudo bridge. Bridges in the past were always aligned across the narrowest stretch of the river. Fortunately, new metro bridges and the Barapullah span are wider. A bridge should be able to accommodate the river flow even during floods,” Manoj Mishra from Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan said.

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